


Take Me Sideways

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: come alive [26]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dark Klaus Mikaelson, Dark fic, F/M, Possessive Klaus Mikaelson, Post-Magical Apocalypse, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 01:30:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14345136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: Bonnie Bennett had a theory about time travel.





	Take Me Sideways

When Bonnie Bennett had told her that time travel wasn't a matter of moving forwards or backwards, but sideways, Caroline had laughed at her. The entire concept seemed impossible. One reality was more than enough. Bonnie had simply shaken her head, that familiar exasperation, and continued on with her little pet project.

Caroline had teased her occasionally, would sit on her back porch in Mystic Falls and debate the concept with her for hours.

"Somewhere there's a me who actually likes Damon? Impossible."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and took a slow sip of her beer, skin flushed in the heat of a Virginia summer. "Probably. Although it's probably more likely that there is a reality where Damon is less of an ass."

Caroline snorted out a mouthful of beer. "You like Damon."

"Doesn't mean I don't realize how ridiculous he can be," Bonnie said with a grin, handing her a napkin. "But it's not every decision that branches, I think. Just the big ones."

"Like what?"

Bonnie purses her lips. "Maybe you're human."

Caroline tipped her head back, stared up at the sunset. "That seems so strange."

"Who knows?" Bonnie shrugged. "It's just a theory. For all we know, certain events are set in stone and are bedrocks of a healthy universe."

"Hey now," Caroline protested, waving her beer. "That's Batman logic, from the comics. Have you been holding out on me?"

Bonnie turned scarlet and spluttered. Caroline had teased her mercilessly, but all the while, a little thought had niggled at her. She'd shoved it to the side, refused to dwell on it. A promise she wasn't certain she'd ever accept.

Caroline treasured that memory. The certainty of her friend that somewhere, things were different. Because for the last fifty years, everything had gone to hell.

Figuratively and literally.

Humanity had learned about vampires, about witches, and the war that knowledge had sparked was devastating. Too many people died. I'm the end, it was humanity that gained a foothold, and what was left of the community had gone deep into hiding.

"They'll kill them eventually," Bonnie had told her one fall day as they hid out in the caves of Caroline's childhood. Mystic Falls smelled of blood and old fires, the woods scared by carnage the air still remembered.

"Who?"

Bonnie looked up from Elena's coffin, her face tired. There was more white than black in her hair now, deep lines around Bonnie's eyes and mouth that spoke of the decades they'd lived. She limped, on cold mornings, her movements hesitant and slow. In her coffin, Elena was still young, with no idea of the hellscape that awaited her.

They'd moved her early, and Bonnie had finagled just enough magic that she'd go undetected. Caroline wasn't sure this was the future that Elena thought she'd wake too, the Salvatores missing, their childhood homes gone. But human Elena had a chance to thrive, in the end. Her humanity would protect her.

"The Originals."

Caroline jerked, and swallowed hard while looking away. It was fall, the leaves brown and red, the occasional splash of yellow. There was little comforting here, the remains of multiple childhoods scattered around her. "Yes."

No one knew when or how they'd gone missing. But it'd become clear when they'd never made a single appearance when New Orleans was ransacked, when humanity had started to win, they'd been taken before the first skirmish.

She'd die that the day they were killed. So would thousands of others. The witches and lone werewolves would be all that was left of the Supernatural legacy. The uncertainty of it, the cold knowledge that she couldn't do anything about it, left dead a knot in her stomach.

Sometimes, Caroline wondered if she'd see her mom again.

"I'm sorry."

Caroline turned to look at Bonnie then. "Why are you sorry?"

Her friend took a deep breath and looked up, eyes wet. "That this happened. That I can't extend my life to help you fight anymore. For everything."

"You're not to blame for other people's choices, Bon Bon. You're my best friend. There isn't anything to forgive."

A sudden wind blew at Bonnie's hair, and Caroline's heart started to pound. Bonnie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Caroline tried to move, to warn Bonnie that this was too much magic, that the hunters would find them. But she couldn't.

"I made promises too. Please don't forget me."

Oh, Bonnie.

It was her last coherent thought. There was a sensation like her bones melting, then everything melted sideways.

* * *

There was a hybrid watching her.

Caroline glanced down at her burner phone, the small hairs on the back of her neck tingling as she walked down the snow filled street. The world she'd found herself in had been a shock, and she was nowhere near finding her footing. Here, the war that had so decimated her life had raged, but instead of humanity, it was the Originals who had prevailed.

She hadn't been surprised to hear stories of the atrocities committed by the Mikaelson's. The ruthlessness. Whatever understanding of the universe she might have had previously no longer applied here. Humanity was in ruins, carefully cultivated and organized. There were pockets where resistance fighters still held territory, but those were diminishing every year.

Now, whose line you belonged too was everything. Vampires were at the top of the food chain, and it was a ruthless world, where your life was lived at the mercy of the Original who made you. Caroline had done everything she could to avoid letting anyone discover that she belonged to Klaus.

But hybrids were a problem. Whatever magic Klaus had bargained for with the witches, it was the hybrids who could suss out a line just by the scent of a vampire. More importantly, whoever a hybrid roamed, Klaus wasn't far behind.

She needed to get out of the city.

She had been unable to figure out where the universe had changed. It was clear that Klaus had Elena, but Caroline was uncertain about her role. She'd found her grave, set prettily next to her mother's, but that could have meant nothing.

Turning sharply into an alley, she froze. Heart leaping into her throat, lungs stuttering in her chest, she went absolutely still at the sight of Klaus. He was waiting for her, shoulder braced against the alley wall, eyes ringed in yellow.

"Hello, Caroline," he drawled, smile a slow, dangerous blade. "That is what you go by, is it not?"

"Yes," she said shortly, spine iron straight as he pushed off the wall and moved towards her. There was nothing welcoming in his expression, every instinct she had burning in warning. Klaus was angry, and she was the target.

"You're a hard vampire to track down." He said, tone nearly conversational. "I admit, when I received the first report of your existence, I expected you to come to me. Imagine my surprise when you didn't."

"Why would I?"

A hint of dimple left her stomach flipping, and then he was close enough to touch. Her fingers itched to reach for him, to confirm he was real. It'd been seventy years since she'd seen him, felt him, and she found that the monster she'd cultivated to survive craved his touch.

"Why? What other use would you have for this particular face?" Klaus queried, touch deceptively gentle as he dragged a single fingertip along her chin. "Tell me, where did you get it?"

The realization that not only had she known Klaus, that she likely was dead in this world, shook her. Cursing mentally, she pushed his hand away and set her chin stubbornly. "When did I die?"

His eyes flared, yellow taking over the blue entirely. Veins crawled beneath his eyes, and the double fangs that were such a threat sent a hot bolt of lust through her gut. Those feral eyes narrowed, and his head canted as he took a slow breath. She should have been embarrassed by the way she knew he could smell her unexpected arousal, but it was the slight hint of confusion that made her wary.

"A witch can mimic many things," he nearly purred, gaze calculating and dangerous as he stepped so close her breasts brushed his chest. His hands cupped her jaw carefully, and she nearly shuddered at the danger in that delicate hold. "How she looked, how she sounded. The feel of her skin, but I've yet to find one who managed to mimic so accurately the smell of her arousal. Who are you?"

Caroline knew down to her bones, that if he didn't like her answer, he'd kill her. But backing down wasn't a choice. Her hands came up to grip his wrists, nails biting into his skin for all that she made no move to tug him away. "Did you know that Bonnie has a pet theory about time travel?"

She exhaled slowly at the way he went still and watchful, thumbs brushing her cheeks. She didn't the caress as a sign of softening, if anything it heightened her alarm. As if he was indulging a need he couldn't help, that he wouldn't have the chance to sate again.

"Perhaps."

Her gaze narrowed. "Stop being an ass."

The sudden feeling of the brick wall against her spine nearly drove the the air from her lungs. The veneer of calmness was stripped from his face, and his smile was a terrible thing. "Caroline Forbes died warning me about a human uprising that planned on wiping out the supernatural. When I found the remains of her body, they'd cut her into pieces, burned her heart and left her head on a spike for me to find."

Her vampire face crawled to the surface, and she bared her fangs. "We don't know what happened to you in my world. You just disappeared."

"Did I?" He taunted. "Why should I believe you?"

She growled, and he blocked her kick easily. Tossing her head, she glared. "Let go."

"Wishing for death already?"

She head butted him and he snarled, teeth white and sharp near her throat. "Do you know what it's like to die from a hybrid bite?"

She pressed her mouth against his ear, refusing to flinch at the threat. "Of course I do. Twice, in fact. I also know how hard I come with your teeth in my throat, my thigh."

She'd have missed the slight shiver, had they not been locked so tightly together. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wiggled against him. "You want proof? Let me go."

Caroline had almost expected the bite, the sharp burn of his teeth, and she bit her tongue viciously to hold back the whimper. His head lifted a moment later, and he looked nearly dazed, eyes slightly unfocused. She ignored the cool sting, the way her blood slid against her skin as she shoved him back.

Holding his eyes as they refocused, something she couldn't read gathering behind his eyes, she yanked off her jacket, and let it fall to the floor as she reached for her hem. Yanking her shirt off, Caroline spun and showed him the lines of her back.

The scars no vampirism could heal.

There was a long silence, and the burn was starting to hurt when his fingertips grazed across her back. "What is this?"

She bit her lip at the ice in his voice. "I take it the human faction never got this far?"

A breath, then the breadth of his palm spread across the worse of the scarring. "No."

"Bonnie thought magic could eventually counter it, but it would bring too much attention to try. Humanity found a way to damage vampires in a way they couldn't immediately heal. Magic, we think. I got this one, rescuing Bonnie from a witch concentration camp."

He spun her around with no warning, and Caroline hissed a complaint. His face was unreadable as he bit into his wrist and offered it to her. She took it with relief, but the sudden tightening of her chest at her first taste of him, the burning behind her eyes, caught her off guard. She swallowed frantically, until he pulled away. Then, carefully, he pushed her a bloody curl away from her chin.

"Tell me about the Bennett witches thoughts on timetravel."

She licked away the taste of him from her lips, shuddered. "Sideways. She believes it's a matter of going sideways."

This time his hold was almost tender. Something wild behind his eyes. His voice, when he spoke, was filled with a need she'd never heard before.

"Caroline."

Then he wrenched her neck, and her world went black.


End file.
